Press release from Ball State University:

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Architecture professor receives 2011-12 ACSA Distinguished Professor Award (1/25/2012)

By Mallory Sturgeon

Ball State University professor Mahesh Daas has been named a 2011-12 Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) Distinguished Professor. The award is one of the highest national recognitions for an architectural educator. As chair of the Department of Architecture, Daas is recognized for sustained creative achievement in the advancement of architectural education through teaching, design, scholarship, research and service. Daas said he is humbled to join the company of previous winners of the ACSA Distinguished Professors. Previous winners include Christopher Alexander, Charles Moore, Fay Jones, Ralph Rapson, Denise Scott-Brown, Romaldo Giurgola and Gunnar Birkerts.

The award jury praised Daas for “a significant record of academic leadership in interdisciplinary research at the University of Texas San Antonio and Ball State University.” One of the nominators said, “Professor Daas is an influential scholar and international leader in the field of innovation for extreme affordability.”

“I am deeply honored that the jury felt strongly about the relevance and sustained merit of my teaching, design, research and leadership,” Daas said. “I have always liked to step in the intersections between disciplines and build bridges between silos. The award reaffirms my belief that, to paraphrase W.B. Yates, education is not about filling a bucket, but about lighting a fire that leads to self-discovery and civil society.”

A medallion and certificate will be presented by the president of ACSA at a special Career Awards Ceremony during the 100th ACSA annual meeting in Boston later this year. Recipients become Fellows of the College of Distinguished Professors of Architecture and may use the title ACSA Distinguished Professor, DPACSA in perpetuity.

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ACSA Archive design competition held a competition called “The Beauty Pageant.” The project “Morpholuminescence” produced by students Adam Buente, Elizabeth Boone, Eric Brockemeyer and Kyle Perry was a winner. The project was done in “An Inconvenient Studio 2009.”

Jurors for the competition included Mark Foster Gage, Associate Professor and Acting Assistant Dean, Yale University School of Architecture; Emmanuelle Bourlier, co-founder & CEO, Panelite; and Richard Rose, Partner & Creative Director, PopKitchen Co.

http://archive100.org/users/m45/project/967

CONVERSATIONS

Up close and personal dialogs about leadership

The CONVERSATIONS series will present up close and personal dialogs about leadership with prominent leaders from the profession. The conversation will start with a presentation of a brief life sketch of the guest, followed by an open dialog with the guest about his or her life journey, the origins, the development and the ascent to the leadership position. The freewheeling and informal format of the discussion elicits thick and intense perspectives into the life and work of the guest. A broad range of topics will be covered that might include, but not limited to, the guest’s views about the profession, education, changing context of architecture, and emerging trends. The series will offer rare and unique glimpses into the life of leaders in the profession, which would be a source of inspiration for the academic community. After 40 minutes of dialog, the forum will be opened for questions from the audience. The event will be webcast live.

The first of the CONVERSATIONS featured architect Joe Mrak in dialog with Mahesh Daas, Chair of the Department of Architecture, on October 31, 2011.

News Coverage:

http://www.bsudailynews.com/architect-shares-life-lessons-with-ball-state-students-1.2663019

http://www.bsudailynews.com/architect-to-be-first-speaker-in-new-series-1.2661908

Video Recording:

http://dvisweb1.bsu.edu/media/bsu/CAP/Conversations_with_Mahesh.html

In collaboration with Robert and Rebecca Bluestone and Dustin Headley, the ARCH598: Design Thinking and Innovation Methods course students designed and developed an installation that turned the Ball State University’s College of Architecture and Planning building into a musical loom. The Bell Tower of the university with the musical instrument Carillon was incorporated into the event via live television link. Multi-colored yarn was woven into a fabric that is four-stories tall. A thousand paper planes were then released as a climactic event. The planes bore writings of many Ball State Cardinals. The news item could be found here.

Woven Topographies Project Video

“Memos from An Inconvenient Studio” brought together digital fabrication, interactive environments and entrepreneurship with social justice. Emphasizing the need for a change in the direction of architectural education and practice, the talk touched upon the four memos: Base of the Pyramid, Scalability, Reverse Innovation and Extreme Affordability. The talk took place in the new Interdisciplinary Sciences building auditorium on USF campus on October 3, 2011.

The book about the illustrious acting career of my late father Kabeer Daas was released on August 7, 2011 in Hyderabad, India. The event at Ravindra Bharati auditorium was well-attended and widely covered in the local press. Prominent actors, directors and literary figures wrote in the book and spoke at the commemorative event on the eve of the first anniversary of his passing. The book was launched by actor Sri Murali Mohan, IAS officer Mr. K.V. Ramanachari, and the National Drama Academy prize-winning playwright Dr. Vizaibhaskar. The book includes the award-winning short story by yours truly. A comedian and a character actor in four formats, he excelled on stage, radio, television and film media. Actors Gundu Hanumantha Rao, Sutthi Velu and others spoke at the ceremony. Here are more photos from the ceremony.

NSF Workshop on Research in Materials and Manufacturing has successfully concluded. The workshop has been live streamed and archived. Please visit the website for a link to video.

Delivered the lecture as part of the Ball State Diversity Lecture Series.

Summary: We normally talk about diversity as a social, ethical and cultural issue. Seldom do we put diversity in the same sentence as innovation, let alone equate the two. But if we dig deep enough, we realize that innovation is not possible on a consistent basis without systemic diversity. Innovation is brought about by ‘thiking differently’ and by thinking outside a given box of assumptions. How can we think differently unless there are people with different viewpoints around the table? While it is possible to imagine that people with similar life background, cultural makup, education paths and worldviews can be trained to think differently from each other for sometime, it is difficult to sustain such a dynamic for obvious reasons. In a similar vein, it is possible for people from vastly different cultural backgrounds and life experiences can be taught to think the same way (conform) for sometime, but difficult to prevent them from thinking differently on a sustainable basis. I hope the central premise of my argument is clear enough. Innovation is NOT possible on a consistent basis without true and systemic diversity. Of course, diversity alone does not guarantee innovation, nor is it easy to build systemic diversity without falling into the trap of “prosthetic additions” of few diverse individuals as tokens. The economic, regulatory and political environments define whether innovation is permitted to take root or not. Assuming conditions are comparable, places with diversity outshine places without diversity by any measure of innovation productivity: patents generated, startup companies created, disruptive innovations heralded, value created for stake holders, etc. Emerging research in these areas is intriguing.

Just as many people have argued recently, including Thomas Friedman, innovation is a dire necessity to address the puzzling global challenges of the emerging world. I will add to that urgency by stating that diversity is also a dire necessity from the perspective of innovation. First diversity, then innovation. For more about this lecture, please click the link below and read the report. 

News can be found here: http://www.bsudailynews.com/news/last-of-diversity-lectures-teaches-students-innovation-1.2417406

A Facebook group DFIX has been launched. Please send a request to join if you are interested. DFIX is a group of designers, architects, researchers, and leaders who care about aligning design, emerging technologies, social justice with entrepreneurship. As C.K. Prahalad and Vijay Govindarajan amply showed, the markets at the “Base of the Pyramid” are full of potential and need our attention.

Keynote lecture delivered at the Sociedad Iberoamericana de Gráfica Digital (SIGRADI) international conference held in Bogota, Colombia on the topic of At the Intersection of Design, Fabrication and Extreme Affordability. Here is a link to the photos: